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A WONDERFUL LIGHT

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 1, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 22.

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A WONDERFUL LIGHT.

A FAST-FLASHING beacon light that can be seen in favorable weather for more than forty miles has just been installed by the German Government upon the island of Helgoland, in the German Ocean. It is the most wonderful in the world.
The light used equals 30,000,000 candle-power. The light lasts one-fifth of a second and repeats itself in five seconds. It illumines the entire horizon in that period. At forty miles' distance the pencil of light flashes over the sea at the rate of 186,000 miles a second.
The German parabolic mirror reflector is used.
About the middle of the nineties, says Ueber Land und Meer, German experts were sent to France by the German Imperial Government to study flash-lights. They were convinced that by means of two or more reflectors, erected upon a reflector with Schuckert's glass parabolic mirror, results equal to those of France could be produced.
Experiments were made in Nuremberg. The revolving reflector of the German apparatus was found equal to the Frenchman's revolving light. As soon as the experts had demonstrated their point, work was begun on a light-reflector equal to the largest ever used.
In normal weather the light may be seen twenty-three sea miles (twenty-three knots). When the weather is favorable the beams go far beyond the central fires or light rays. On the first night that the new light was used its peculiar, flashing beams were seen by people standing on the mole at Busum—a distance of sixty-five kilometres, or a trifle over forty miles.
The watchers in the lighthouse at Amrum, about the same distance, were able in unfavorable weather to see the same beams as they rapidly appeared and disappeared. It was noted that the otherwise bluish white light of the electric arc appeared red.